Books: Great Ancestor

MARLBOROUGH: HIS LIFE AND TIMES, Vol. VI—Winston S. Churchill—Scribner ($2.75).

The Rt. Hon, Winston Spencer Churchill, a Cabinet Minister at 34, writer, painter, orator, jack-of-all-talents, is an unfortunate man. Too brilliant a politician to become a first-rate writer, he has been too brilliant a writer, in a country which puts a premium on imposing mediocrity, to become Prime Minister.

Despite the burden of versatility, Churchill has succeeded in writing one impressive work: a six-volume biography of his famous Whig ancestor, John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, the English Napoleon. The last volume, published last...